Ukrainian low-cost airline SkyUp has resumed flights in Europe on a wet lease basis on five aircraft. Negotiations on another airliner are now ongoing, the press service of the air carrier said.
This situation means that SkyUp was able to use half of its active pre-war fleet. Although officially the low-cost airline fleet consists of 15 airliners, five of them were in storage at EU airports at the beginning of February 2022.
Currently, five SkyUp aircraft have been rented together with Ukrainian crews by Air Moldova (IATA code 9U), Corendon Europe Airlines (XR) and Tailwind Airlines (TI). This made it possible to provide work for 158 Ukrainian aviators.
According to avianews.com, since the end of April, four Boeing 737-800 SkyUps with registrations UR-SQA, UR-SQB, UR-SQC, UR-SQF, UR-SQG have been transporting tourists from Europe to resorts in Europe, Turkey and Africa, and also help on regular flights of the Moldovan airline Air Moldova from Chisinau.
All five aircraft are operated quite intensively, making up to 5-6 flights per day, which is the maximum possible indicator for this type of aircraft, taking into account flight routes.
Wet leasing, under which SkyUp flies for Air Moldova, Corendon Europe Airlines and Tailwind Airlines, is a type of temporary aircraft lease. It provides that the actual carrier, in this case SkyUp, provides the customer with an aircraft, crews and performs maintenance of the aircraft.
“When concluding an agreement with partners, we carefully check that there are no beneficiaries from Russia or Belarus in their ownership structure. The same applies to companies providing reinsurance services. And, of course, we will not fly to Russia, Belarus and other countries that are banned by the State Aviation Administration of Ukraine,” SkyUp noted.
For Ukrainian airlines, which, due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, are now unable to operate in the domestic market, the transfer of aircraft to wet leasing is a good opportunity to continue their activities and minimize losses from downtime due to the war.